Lobi Traoré is a Bambara singer from a village near Segou, the heart of
the Bambara region. When he was 16 years old, he went to the town of Segou where he joined a folkoric music group.
Around 1980, when we was in Bamako, he got in contact with Zani Diabaté's Super
Djata Band, where he became a singer for the bambara repertoire.
A few years later, he started to sing solo in bars and at weddings, and the people of Bamako started to know him for
his bambara music with that bluesy touch. Over the years, he added percussion (djembe, gourd and bongolo) to his music.
A second album « Bamako » was recorded in 1994 and produced by
Ali Farka Touré. It was the starting point of an international career.

Halfway the 1990s, Lobi has been touring across West Africa and Europe. An encounter with French harmonica player
Vincent Bucher, who has been playing with several French and American blues artists, proves to be a fruitful and
results in a lasting musical friendship. The album « Duga » contains the fruits of this
collaboration.

Singing about Bambara kings, Lobi's songs are melancholic, and without him knowing, his music sounds very much like blues.
After some years of relative silence, a new album with a compilation of his best songs has been released in France in
September 2004.